Russian smoke is unraveling onto Capitol Hill

Democrats have overindulged in the Russian hacking narrative until U.S intelligence veteran officers affirm the contrary.In a memorandum addressed to President Donald Trump on July 24, 2017, retired intelligence officers challenge the claim that Russia hacked DNC e-mail server in the presidential campaign. (1)Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is a group of veteran officers of the U.S intelligence community, which was formed, in January 2003, when it issued a statement accusing the Bush administration of inventing weapons of mass destruction held by the tyrant Saddam Hussein in order to topple him. (2)The group warned President Bush of unintended catastrophic consequences for the Middle East.The strong Iraq state under Saddam Hussein has dissolved into three antagonist communities: Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnites.The Christian community in Iraq was one of the oldest in the world. It numbered around 1.5 million people before the American invasion, representing 7% of the Iraqi population. Since then, it has dropped to less than half a million because it was targeted by the two Muslim communities as an ally of the “Crusaders.” Christians fled to the nearby independent Kurdistan. Victims of ethnic cleansing include Yaziris, Circassians, Armenians, and other minorities.History has proved that VIPS was right in its predictionVIPS is an apolitical veteran community whose sole interest is to prevent any further disaster abroad for the United States of America, and to restore sanity in the country as its name says it.Off course, the escalating rhetoric of mainstream media and sanctions voted by American Congress against Russia are detrimental to both countries. It is also reviving a useless Cold War whereas an alliance between the two countries is badly needed to counter Islamic terrorism.In retaliation, Putin cut two thirds of the American personal working at the American embassy in Moscow. Trump thanked him in return for reducing the American budget deficit. The two world leaders have kept a cool head whereas Democrats succumbed to a fit of Russian hysteria after losing an election, which was considered as a done deal by mainstream media.Stop messing around and get down to the nitty-gritty.Forensic studies revealed that DNC e-mail server was not hacked but Russia but leaked by an insider with a physical access to the server who copied data on an external storage device.Key among the findings of the independent investigation is that the data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an internet capability for a remote hack.Of equal importance, the forensics shows that the copying was performed neither in Russia nor in Romania by the alleged Guccifer hacker invented by DNC top officials, but on the East Coast of the US, on May 5, 2016, between 3.52 pm ET and 3.56 pm ET. (3)The forensic fills in a critical gap left by the former Obama administration.Instead of asking the help of NSA and FBI agencies after Wikileaks president Julian Assange claimed that he was in possession of stolen documents, DNC hired Crowdstrike, a private company of dubious record in cyber crime, in order to find elusive Russian hackers. Neither former FBI director James Comey nor NSA director Admiral Michael Rogers nor former Attorney General Loretta Lynch protested that a private company of dubious record was leading such an investigation. Understand if you will why mainstream media remained mute.Later on, handpicked analysts from intelligence agencies did mention neither that anomaly nor any valuable forensics in their report to President Obama on January 6, 2017.On January 17, 2017, VIPS counterattacked and asked former President Obama to release evidence backing up allegations that Russia aided the Trump campaign. (4) In introduction, VIPS made an interesting parallel with the USS MaineThe armored cruiser was allegedly sunk by a mine in Havana harbor on January 25, 1898, which led to the war against Spain. In 1998, a century after that tragedy, National Geographic investigation reported that a fire in the coal bunker could have generated sufficient heat to trigger an explosion in the adjacent ammunition magazine. I had a keen interest on that event when I wrote a trilogy on President Theodore Roosevelt. (5)VIPS challenged President Obama as follows: “Alleged Russian interference has been labeled an act of war, and Mr Trump a traitor. However, those charges do not pass the smell test. We urged you to authorize public release of any tangible evidence; otherwise, skeptical Americans will be left with the corrosive suspicion that the intense campaign of accusations is part of a wider attempt to discredit the Russians and those –like Mr Trump – who wish to deal constructively with them.”In his final days at the White House, Obama said that the report of handpicked experts was inconclusive, even though it expressed “high confidence” that Russian intelligence relayed material it acquired from the DNC to Wikileaks. The byzantine Obama kicked the can on the road.Based on its unique technical experience, VIPS is confident enough to assess that DNC data has reached Wikileaks via a leak by a DNC insider, but another person has copied it before on an external storage device.VIPS has drawn a distinction between two leaksAn insider leaked to Wikileaks before Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016, that he had DNC documents exposing strong bias toward Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in the primaries. Wikileaks divulged those documents on July 22.A separate leak on July 5, 2016, was tainted by cutting and pasting it into a blank template with Cyrillic letters in order to show that it came from a Russian hack.In a recent article, I related the suspicious murder of three DNC staffers during the presidential campaign. (6)IT staffer Seth Rich was murdered on July 10, 2016. Because he was the national data director, he had a physical access to the DNC server. He was probably the insider who loaded data on an external storage device, such as a thumb flash drive, which is beneath the radar of security guards at the entrance of DNC headquarters on Capitol Hill, Washington.Rich needed a few minutes in the server room as forensic analysis proved it. Unfortunately, it was a risky theft because the web log analysis software registers when, how, and by whom a web server is visited. (7) A server room is protected by cameras and badge access. He probably disabled the cameras before entering the server room. However, disabling the web log analysis software in order to erase his own fingerprints requires time, skill, and cool head under severe stress.When Wikileaks president Julian Assange claimed that he came into possession of DNC data, he triggered a chain reaction. DNC chief of staff John Podesta immediately launched an internal investigation in order to find the leak. Seth Rich was in an unbearable position. As the national data director, he was in charge of the internal investigation. However, another investigation was probably led by an external source because time was running out before the Democratic National Convention was held in Philadelphia, New Jersey.Seth Rich did not know that he was the principal suspect because he was happy to learn that he was invited to join Hillary Clinton’s campaign team on July 5. It was the same day that a tainted leak was released under the nickname of Guccifer. This coincidence is troubling. Five days later, Rich was murdered in a robbery crime cover-up operation.The guilty Julian Assange offered a $20.000 reward for retrieving his murderers. It was the first time that a cyber spy working for his organization was killed. Assange was deeply worried when he was interviewed by a Dutch television. Remember that DNC top managers wanted to make an example after the Washington Post divulged a sensitive information. (Because VIPS confirmed that there were two insiders, IT staffer Shawn Lucas seemed to be the insider who leaked DNC data to Wikileaks. He was found dead in his bathroom after taking a cocktail of pills on August 2, 2016. I related his suspicion death in my last piece but I did not figure out his duplicity outside representing a class action lawsuit against Hillary Clinton. (9)